Afrikaans is spoken mostly in Namibia, South Africa, and a bit of Botswana. There are also tiny pockets of Afrikaans-speaking communities in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and the United Kingdom. It should be noted that Afrikaans does not have a majority of speakers anywhere, as in South Africa, it is one out of 11 official languages, and in Namibia and Botswana, it is treated as one of several minority languages (A minority language in the U.K. would be Irish, or in the U.S., any Native American language.).

The Dutch spoken in 17th century South Africa slowly moved away from 17th century Standard Dutch to what is now known as Afrikaans. When Afrikaans was recognised as an independent language, the Dutch called it a "Kitchen language" (Kombuistaal) until the mid 1950s. The Dutch named it so because it was so rare to find speakers of it that the educational system in South Africa barely acknowledged it.

It is estimated that 90-95% of Afrikaans vocabulary comes from Dutch. but has also influences from other languages including: English, Malay, Portuguese, German, French, and some African languages. Afrikaans acquired its Malay influence because most of the people who spoke Afrikaans in the beginning of its creation were mostly Asian slaves whose first language was Malay.

Until the 19th century, Afrikaans was only used as a spoken language, and Dutch was used as the formal and written language. In 1925, it became the official language of South Africa, along with English. Being based on Dutch, Afrikaans is part of the Indo-European family, and the Germanic group of languages (English, German, Dutch, etc.). Afrikaans is used by all races.

1933 was a major milestone for Afrikaans; the entire Bible was translated into the language. Another revision was made in 1983, and the 1983 revision is the bible that most Afrikaans-speakers use today.